Overflow
Inner ) Outer group show, Tent Gallery, November 2019
Overflow is a work that focuses on water sounds as a platform for investigating a water-human relationship and how water sounds might play an important role in today’s social climate. Overflow is conceived as a sound installation introducing different states of water, found in Scottish Highlands (Blackwood), through continuous sonic experience. In Overflow, water is portrayed in a pitch-black room, playing in a loop through four speakers placed in corners, highlighting the textural richness and ecological and geographical particularity of the agent, with an intention to stimulate a visualisation of heard and multi-sensory awareness. In the installation, we follow a water cycle from a slow, steady rain that turns into a soft and mellow spring (speaker 1), to louder and bigger streams with higher waterfalls (speaker 2), to a big waterfall and eventually stormy sea waves and winds (speaker 3), and finishing with evaporation, heavy rain with thunderstorm and a quiet, steady rain for the end of the cycle (speaker 4). Although Overflow mostly consists of sounds, the darkness of the room and unexpectedness of the parts of the soundtrack introduce the theatrical nature of the project. Installation’s sound element progresses as a narrative in plays – sound portrays introduction (beginning of water journey – stream), elaboration of the “characters” (water in different stages and states), rising action (evaporation), climax (storm), and resolution (rain). Prompted by the theorists like Schafer and Krause, I feel that natural sounds should be as audible and as present as possible, and not only reserved for the gallery spaces, but being heard beyond spaces where art meets its audience. In these encounters, our emotional response might be stronger and our awareness about water might grow, which could eventually lead to a more substantial step towards climate and social justice.